about the little things in life

Tag Archives: friends

I have been in a rough place since my last post. Almost a month ago, I wrote that I wanted to feast on life, not fear. And I really meant it. I really did. But Fear, with its fiendish companion Anxiety, decided it was time to make a meal out of me. They set their teeth into me, tore me apart in their jaws, and tried to devour me chunk by chunk. Most unpleasant. ( I hope they got indigestion.)

Friends and family rallied round and helped me prise loose those nasty jaws, and patched me up. But the struggle has left me tired and short on creativity. Yesterday was the first time in nearly a month that I felt energetic enough to take some photos.

They are not particularly good photos but I am posting them as a way of saying thank you to friends everywhere, and to family, for keeping me steady and upright in recovery.

(*Cautionary note: the concept of ‘best friends forever’ was not one that was part of my colonial ‘growing up’. In our social circle, at school, at church, people came and went. Some came for 3 years, some for six months, some children only came ‘home’ for school holidays; there was no ‘forever’ in relationships. There was only now and a knowing that, eventually, everyone would leave. Yet, it is that lack of permanence in our community that, somehow, continues to hold us together, forever. )

Sunday Best

Update: It’s almost a month now since my childhood friend came to visit and we discussed, amongst many memories, our spiritual beginnings in the Anglican Church in Fiji. Our faith journeys have taken different paths since those early years, but I continue to find great solace and peace in Anglican church surroundings. For me, stepping in to certain Anglican churches is like a home-coming.

The Beginning : ‘When I was Three I was hardly me. When I was Four, I was not much more.’ A A Milne

Update: It has been a difficult week. It is tempting to look back to the past and think all was perfect. It was not. As a child I was dumbfounded, and unbelieving, when I realised that, at the age of five, I would be going to Lautoka European School and my best friend would not. Fortunately, those policies were changed within the next few years as Fiji headed towards Independence, and my friend and I were able to spend a short time together at the renamed school. It became Drasa Avenue School.

The events of my current week, and those contained in my post, seem to relate well to this quote

“Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind, spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies.”

This is the prayer inscribed on the bronze memorial to Robert Louis Stevenson in St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, Scotland. Robert Louis Stevenson was, amongst many other things, a witness to the colonial history of the Pacific Islands. Clanmother writes (and recites) about Robert Louis Stevenson’s connection to the Pacific here.

In my previous post, we took a brief look in the rear view mirror. This post goes further back, to the beginning of my blogcation, in late March.

Preparing for my weekend visitor, I fill the vases…..

for the table

Borage, Salvia and Sage in Blue

Yellow Rocket and Mexican Orange Blossom Leaves

and for the bedroom

Monet and Chilean Guava

In the Garden

Monet and More

Chilean Guava and Zinnia

Chilean Guava and Alyssum

Zinnia and Monet

Update:

Today, April 13 is Thomas Jefferson’s birthday. One of my favourite websites for plant information is this one http://www.monticello.org/site/visit . I would like to visit the Monticello gardens, one day. In the meantime, I looked up sage and borage to see if they featured at Monticello, and they do. I particularly liked this reference to sage/salvia.

“This Mediterranean shrub has been grown in gardens since at least the thirteenth century. It was thought to prolong life, even “render men immortal.” Sage was a standard item in gardens from colonial times, and was included by Jefferson in a list of “Objects for the garden this year” in 1794. The term Salvia comes from the Latin salveo meaning “I am well,” a reference to its virtuous powers. In addition to being a useful culinary herb, Sage is an attractive ornamental dwarf shrub that attracts bees and butterflies, but is not favored by deer.”

Although I do not have to worry about deer ( snails are bad enough! ) eating my plants, I love that I have a plant in my garden that relates to health and well-being and healing. How lovely to look back and realise that I greeted my special guest with a vase of ‘well being”.

and burst the river banks , a friend went foraging across town and, then, treated me to some of her finds…beautiful, tree-ripened blackboy peaches…

Gathered in before the storm

Which are rarely found anywhere except in an old garden, or a forgotten corner of a park, or a vacant lot.

They are sweet as…in a tangy way, with a very distinct aroma and intense depth of flavour (struggling for words here…. perhaps the best description is …”definitely not an anaemic supermarket peach”).

Definitely not a supermarket peach

They are delicious fresh from source, if you don’t mind the fuzzy, rough feel of the skin as it touches your tongue, but they are even better when cooked, not the least because of the rich purple-plum hue that the fruit develops as it mixes with sugar and heat.

Blackboy peaches are my favourite peach for baking and stewing and juicing and jam-ing.

Edmonds Fruit Sponge

Sponge in the Sun

Puree and Fool; all peachy

But here’s the little bit of ‘delicate’ associated with them. I am not so peachy-keen on the name; blackboy. For as long as I can remember that has been their name, and, truthfully, I didn’t think much about it, until a few years ago. They were what they were, and always had been, at least in New Zealand. In much the same way, that Chinese gooseberries were Chinese gooseberries for my parents and grandparents until, one fine day, in 1959, they discovered they were not. The gooseberry (which it actually wasn’t anyway) had morphed in to kiwifruit because the American market was not too peachy-keen to bite anything tainted with the name Chinese. Yet, Chinese gooseberries, before they became kiwifruit, did, at least, have some logic to their name, since the seeds for the kiwifruit came to New Zealand from China, in 1904.

But blackboy peach….what’s with that name? No one, not even the plant nurseries, seems to know the whys and wherefores of this nomenclature, or how the tree came to New Zealand and became so popular with home gardeners. Or, if anyone does know, they’re not telling their tale on the internet. I have searched and searched, fruitlessly.

Was it called blackboy because our down-to-earth ancestors couldn’t be bothered with a fancified, foreign name similar to Sanguine de Manosque, or peche de vigne, or the rather gruesome sounding Blood Red Peach? Or did they find it confusing, or strange, to call them Indian peaches, or stranger still, Indian Blood Peaches ,and wanted to make them more homely and warm and friendly, so latched on to blackboy; in acknowledgement of the fruit’s skin texture and deep, rich colour. Since the blackboy peach has been a much-loved fruit, I doubt any harm or slur was intended by the name but, perhaps, if these trees and their delicious, precious fruit are to survive beyond a few backyards and abandoned sections, it’s time for a makeover. How about calling them something like, ‘Sweet as…’ What could be more modern ‘Kiwi’ than that, to honour a fine fruit of our New Zealand heritage?

Shall we drink to that?

Sweet as…peach tea…anyone?

A note of sympathy:

With the sun shining again, it has been peachy-keen for some of us, today. The some of us who have dry feet and dry homes, that is, and who can enjoy the sunshine without stressing about a massive clean-up and more insurance claims. It’s been a rough 36 hours, or more, for some of our citizens, and their trials are far from over. The earthquakes have changed land levels and river beds, and flooding will be an on-going problem in certain areas of the city.

Seeing as it’s very close to that time of year when we celebrate the ‘light in the dark’,

A friendly light

in festivals as diverse as Halloween and Diwali, the beautiful Beautycalypse and I were discussing our favourite ‘light in the dark’ songs. I mentioned Neil Young’s Light a Candle

and, before she turned out her Northern Hemisphere light, and turned in to bed, she reminded me to listen to Leonard Cohen’s Anthem.

So I did; listen, and then I listened again, and again. And then some. I ADORE (IS THAT LOUD ENOUGH?) Leonard Cohen. My words can’t fully express how his music, his voice, his poetry, soothe my soul. Although I must confess that, half the time, I really don’t know what he is on about, but, still, I feel his songs wrapping around my heart like a cosy, comforting, well-worn shawl, saying ‘It’s okay, it’s okay, life can be lived”. Or something, like that; the words are faint; the feeling, the embrace, is strong.

Listening to Anthem, took me back to one of my earlier posts, Ring in the Spring , where I wrote that “we know, deeply, that even a broken bell has its own essential resonance”

Considering my recent visit to the Slough of Despond, I found Leonard Cohen’s reference, (and my own), to the hope/light/life in cracked bells very reassuring; if not sweetly, sublimely, uplifting. So, thank you Beautcalypse for helping to let the shine through, all the way to my small, temporarily “broken” place at the bottom of the world.

And thank you, too, to all my readers and followers and commenters who have been little beacons of light

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gently guiding me out of my momentary Slough. If I could sing like Leonard or Neil, I would sing an anthem to you 🙂

Instead, I will share my Millennium Prayer Candle, which has been by my side, and lit on every important occasion, since its first lighting on New Year’s Day 2000.

Prayer Candle for the Millennium

Let there be……

These are the words of the Millennium Prayer Candle

The Millennium Prayer

Let there be
Respect for the Earth
Peace for its People
Love in our Lives
Delight in the Good
Forgiveness for Past Wrongs
And from now on
A New Start